The Pop Filter

Land Of Talk – Corner Phone

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Nestled among contemporary music journalism’s gravest shortcomings lies an inability to discuss distortion-loving female singer-songwriters unapologetically.

In lieu of objective criticism, we dedicate hours to justifying the shortcomings of popular female acts while relegating others to digital obscurity. Praise comes easily enough when we strike upon women releasing one devastating song after another, and we happily fête those who excel at the uncommon, say by straddling harps or by boasting perpetually bewildered, doe-eyed expressions. Now granted, some of these performers occasionally walk the musical middle ground between tempestuous and demure, but even then, it’s only a smattering of women actively sidestepping the pop/electro/acoustic-train to Sad Town.

Despite the rash of lauded lo-fi records released by women of late, how often do these artists actually manage to breach their devoted niche audiences? Some would say very. People are ravenous for Best Coast; Dum Dum Girls are opening for Beach House and Vampire Weekend; Coasting, Brooklyn’s latest insufferable girl duo, even opened for The Clean. I get it, really. Fuzzy women are A-OK. But is that it? Is an opening slot the most one can aspire to these days as a non-major frontwoman with inclinations toward the raucous?

Two years have passed since insightful reviews championing the efforts of guitar behemoth Marnie Stern flooded the Internet. Perhaps the dearth I lament is only a temporary lull. Or perhaps I should resign myself to a likely correlation between diminishing opportunities for nurturing artists with an ever-fragmenting critical landscape.

An overall waning interest in rock remains as much a culprit as the lack of coverage of its proponents. After all, a few of the latter admittedly continue to exist, though it would appear we’ve sacrificed our interest in discussing the content produced by today’s women of rock in favor of discussing the context in which it appears, either visually or temporally.

Canada’s Land Of Talk is a band who would have owned college radio back in its heyday. As you may have noticed, they’re loud. And catchy. And technically capable. The founding members met in a jazz program (note to jazz musicians: you, too, can start a successful indie rock band). And yes, while lead singer Elizabeth Powell’s attractiveness certainly isn’t hindering the band, I’d never cite it as the primary cause for the considerable admiration and respect Land Of Talk has garnered over the past few years.

For others, the throwbacks will have to do. The bland harmonies under repetitive power chords? Well, they’ll have to do as well, I guess. But please, someone tell me when a woman who’d actually pick up an electric guitar and play it — one who’d sing into a microphone and ultimately do her best to craft a quality song that was, above all else, hers — morphed into some nonexistent mythical figure. What confluence of events could have possibly brought us here, where the most we seem capable of asking female rockers is a glimpse at the past and a set of cute bangs?

I can understand how decades’ worth of undocumented female jazz instrumentalists may have led to the current lack of renown female performers within that genre; everyone needs someone of their likeness to admire. With rock, however, somewhere along the way things just died.

Rock had The Slits. It had Sleater-Kinney and Electrelane. It had Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth.

Not to mention the non-white female guitarists.

Despite what Elle may have led you to believe with its recent, all-pasty edition of The 12 Greatest Female Electric Guitarists, there have been countless rocking women of color who, unsurprisingly, remain largely unknown. If you’ve never heard Sister Rosetta Tharpe, I highly suggest viewing the video below.

It’s difficult to avoid feeling as though a new, critically-imposed/hype-driven glass ceiling has formed for musicians of all backgrounds, one kept in place by authoritative sources repeatedly failing to discern spectacle from substance.

That said, at the end of the day, thank God for Blonde Redhead. And Marnie Stern. And Brilliant Colors. And Shannon and the Clams. And for others I’m not partial to but respect (e.g. Screaming Females). And for all the unknowns who deserve better than our ignorance of them.

And, yes, obviously for Land of Talk.

Say what you will about the charming nature of the Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls, and, hey, even Brooklyn’s burgeoning Girls at Dawn, I have a hard time imagining anyone caring to debate the matter of these bands’ authenticity. Shannon and the Clams may harp on the sixties as well, but if you can’t hear the difference between Shannon’s “The Warlock In The Woods” and 90% of her contemporaries’ material we’ve likely reached an impasse.